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Suggestions for Avoiding Room Boom: Help Needed

#21
2x4strgkramers said:
I delibrately tried to replicate your issue at a friends house last night. all concrete basement. What I found was the if I pointed the cabs at the wall opposite the cabs in a rectangular room that I got alot of boom back and mid field. I tried on a good sound hunch turning the cab 45 to the opposing wall. This pretty much killed the boom in the back field area but tended to move it into less noticeable areas.

So I would say trying playing with your bass amp turned off axis from the centerline of the back wall.
Click to expand...

Anyone know the science of this?

This sometimes works according to my ears, as does pulling the cab away from the back wall. I also use a Gramma pad to decouple once in a while. You could also try titling the amp up towards your ears, which might be difficult with a larger cab.
 
#22
Without a sound check and with an FOH engineer of unknown competence, you can't control this from the stage.

Spend some time listening to your DI send through a decent mixing board to get your DI signal to sound exactly how you want it, and then leave that part of your signal chain alone night after night. Make any stage adjustments after the DI so FOH isn't affected.

Your FOH engineer can still screw up an ideal bass signal; but if you have a newbie at the board, it helps a lot if the bass DI sounds so tight when they first pull it up that they don't reach for their usual bag of tricks.
 
#23
Look into some loudpseaker design books. They cover alot of these accustical problems. I figured at a wave maturation distance of 17-22 ft depending on FQ that it was a reflective issue IE where 2 waves that where not able to self cancel collided and created High sound pressure zones. Changing the orientation of the wave moved it into a more compliementary arrangement where the collision of sound waves was minimized and therby minimizing the amount of collisions.

I know how it works in my head but getting me to type it out with any accuracy is tough.

Well try doing this with a pool table. If you shoot a ball from the center of one end of the table it will come straight back but it you shoot it to a corner it will eat up some energy and it will also scatter. Typically very low bass frequencys will tend to sort of eminante but the higher fq 100-400hz are directionally adjustable. Try playing with it. I would bet even a 10-20 degree offset from parellel could net you the same sound fix.

What you can't control is the FOH accustical boom.

Mr. Pickles said:
Anyone know the science of this?

This sometimes works according to my ears, as does pulling the cab away from the back wall. I also use a Gramma pad to decouple once in a while. You could also try titling the amp up towards your ears, which might be difficult with a larger cab.
Click to expand...
 
#25
Removing Soundtech & band sound check doesn't remove the possiblity of getting in early to try out your rig at various angles &/or with & without decoupling. It is an option. Clearly not Friday night when the bar is filling up with a crowd, but that doesn't mean you can't do it Tuesday afternoon.

I'm avidly following the thread to gather ideas for the next time I hit the same pothole. Thanks for starting it!!
 
#26
Great thread, gang. I shoulda asked these questions 15 years ago!

I like the idea of setting the cab up off-axis and using a Gramma (I have one) to decouple from the stage. Great tip about making the DI send sound good, too. Any other ideas or tips?
 
#27
Do the clubs/bars usually mic your instruments, or are you only driving the room with your amps themselves?

I think it is a bit unrealistic to judge room boom by a recording -- too many sound that don't affect the audience. Where was the recording mic? How high quality was it? Was it partially off the board? did it have any eq'ing of its own? etc. Or put another way -- if you eq based on a recording, you might still be doing the human ears in your audience a disservice -- which points back to what bongomania said -- have someone around whose ears you trust.

- 15 minutes is plenty of time to make this kind of specific adjustment -- assuming you're not doing a full re-eq'ing of the whole band's sound, all you're doing is looking for one or two problematic freqs. So, go wireless or have a long cable, plug in and immediately get out into the room and womp away while the rest of the guys are still setting up. So make sure you can set your rig up quickly, get off the stage and do the rest of your prep out in the crowd.

- At the end of the day, all that matters is what the audience thinks. If you play through the PA, the sound guy will trump whatever you do in favor of the audience -- so let him. If it's just your amps, then setting your tone based on how it sounds on the stage is worthless -- the audience is getting someting WAY different -- so you have to choose between ideal FOH tone for the audience, or ideal stage tone for you -- and you should pick the former. And given that every room will be different, just remember that there are no guaranteed one-size-fits-all answers.

So: if sound guy: do your own thing and let him worry about the room. if no sound guy: go wireless or long cable, and tweak your tone from the main floor. And over all, don't overthink it -- unless you're blasting everyone else out (which SOMEONE will bring to your attention) it's probably getting the job done for the crowd, so focus on rocking out and leaving a good performance-impression.

cheers!

ltt
 
#28
swood_de said:
David: soundchecks aren't possible unless we are the first band on the bill. I use my own rig, which means I can't get stage access until it's time to play our set. As far as relying on the sound guy, I guess I was trying to be nice and avoid saying this, but if I'm in a situation where I need to deal with this from the stage that means the sound guy is either incompetent, drunk or disinterested - or some combination of the above. So, my question is this : how can I deal with room boom assuming no sound guy and no sound check?
Click to expand...
You can’t, simple as that. Your best bet would be to add a parametric EQ to your rig, as bongomania recommended, and fix it on the fly. You seem to have a good grasp of where the problem frequencies are, so it should be pretty easy for you.
t.gif


Of course, this is assuming the bass guitar is the source of the problem. Every instrument on the stage generates lots of energy in the 80-200 Hz range; any or all of them can contribute to "room boom," coming from them being poorly EQd in the mains, stage monitors and stage amps. Link Removed that you might find helpful.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
 
#29
Great stuff, folks. In the real world, it's tough to give control over your tone in the audience to a sound guy that doesn't care and isn't listening. I know that's the gig, but I'm still obsessed with trying to get my tone out into the room. This thread will help me do that!
 
#30
hbarcat said:
I automatically shelf cut the bass from 150-400 Hz (just a bit) when I play live because this lets the guitars occupy more of that space.

Then cut the guitars below 100 Hz and boost them a touch around 1000 Hz.

I usually boost the bass a bit around 4000 Hz to add some clarity because it usually doesn't interfere much with vocals, guitars or other instruments.
Click to expand...

I am very impressed with the thoughtfulness and professionalism reflected in this approach. This really goes against the grain for a lot of us bassists, though, because if you yield the 150-400 Hz sonic real estate to the guitar(s), what does that leave for the bass? Many guitarists I have played with don't need to have any more space left for them, they take plenty of it on their own. And it seems to me since the 125-250 freqs are where most of the thump and punch come from you want to have enough of that reserved for kick drum and bass. And doesn't boosting the 4k get you a pretty "nasal-ly" bass sound?

That said, I realize that a good band sound is the sum of its parts and that often times a bass tone that sounds terrible on its own sounds great in a full band house mix and vice versa. Thanks for getting us thinking along those lines.
 
#33
JustDavid said:
Removing Soundtech & band sound check doesn't remove the possiblity of getting in early to try out your rig at various angles &/or with & without decoupling. It is an option. Clearly not Friday night when the bar is filling up with a crowd, but that doesn't mean you can't do it Tuesday afternoon.

I'm avidly following the thread to gather ideas for the next time I hit the same pothole. Thanks for starting it!!
Click to expand...

Sorry, but with all due respect it isn't an option. I've played extensively on the same circuit, and the venues typically are very strict about when you're allowed in the door with your gear, let alone setting it up and experimenting. Especially in NYC, it's "ready, set, go", you load in, set up, play, and load out, usually literally climbing over the other bands both ways. The original Livingroom on the Lower East Side was so small that you actually had to wait on the sidewalk outdoors with your gear until your turn came. Then, when you got the okay, you had about 10 minutes to load in, set up and start.
And most places have music every night of the week.
The best suggestion I've heard yet is to raise the cab(s) off the floor. (And use a passive bass with flatwound strings and a pick!) :smug:
(Edit): Also (and this is obvious, and you probably realize it already), you should keep in mind that you might have to adjust your EQ in such a way that you don't like your onstage sound. If you're boosting 50Hz to sound "phat" to yourself, that might be the culprit right there. Unfortunately, guitarists often seem clueless about this concept, and "need" to hear themselves sounding massive, just to feel comfortable. Oh well.
 
#34
+1 to getting the cabinet off the floor. I use a standard milk crate under my 4x10, conceal it with a black drop-cloth and it works great. Sound guys love me and I can run my amp volume at least a third lower cause the speakers are that much closer to my ears.

Might not be well advised with a 6x10 or 8x10 cabinet, however.
 
#35
Doug, I didn't want to sound disrespectful towards some who have contributed to this thread, but it's true: on this circuit there are usually no soundchecks except to quickly set levels, we rarely get more than 10 minutes or so to set up and there's no way the venue will allow early set-up and experimentation. For me, that's the point of this thread: how do we deal with "room boom" in such an environment?
 
#36
Swood, I agree... I was trying to reinforce your original question, because it seemed to be getting lost.
I think all you can do is hope for many more gigs, and have someone in your entourage out in the audience to report on how things sounded from night to night, as you try different things. ("I could hear you much better tonight. What did you do?" "I got the cabinet off the floor, angled it and cut out some 50Hz.")
 
#37
Good stuff...by the way, I have been at this for a couple of decades now, but I have never learned the trick - if there is one - to dealing with the "no sound check or set-up time" situation. It makes me nuts that you can't really hear your tone as it appears in the house from the stage, but I know that's the way it is. So, here's the list of things to try at the next gig: my Auralex Gramma (I already have one), a parametric EQ (ditto), and angling the cab off-axis a bit. We'll see.

Any other ideas?
 
#38
+1. I use mine on most gigs and also use a parametric eq ('Lil Freq) which has a great high pass filter that I set at 60 Hz. The great thing about the filter is that it can be switched in and out. Also make sure that you setup away from the drum mics if you can.

Dirk Diggler said:
I can't believe no one has suggested using an Auralex Gramma pad. Simple solution that will take the boom out in seconds. The sound guy will love you for it too, no more coupling with the drums and stage.
Dirk
Click to expand...
 
#39
Boom is caused by the shape of the room reinforcing certain frequencies -- aka room modes. Here's a link that discusses the physics: Link Removed

Here's a link (from that page to another) that can help you calculate the frequencies that will be reinforced:
http://www.mcsquared.com/modecalc.htm

Of course no room is going to be a perfect size match, but this should help get you close. I've also heard about doing sweeps by humming into a mic and finding which tone is booming, then notching the EQ on that frequency.
 
#40
Get Geddy with your tone, take some bass out and use enough low mid to get heard in the mix without the boom. There is not much you can do..pads and blankets may help but not a ton. But I have also played these type of clubs that sound just whips around in, not much you can do. Make sure the guitars are not too bassy as well, that may help.
 

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